Many organizations operate computer network environments that include legacy host systems which store data and provide applications important to the operation of the organization. Such legacy host systems can include IBM mainframes (MVS, VM and VSE environments), IBM AS/400 systems and UNIX host systems.
It is desirable for such organizations to provide connection to the legacy host systems through terminal sessions on distributed client systems such as personal computers and computer workstations. This connection to the legacy host system provides access for users of the client systems to the data and applications on the legacy host system. These terminal sessions can include 3270, 5250, NVT and VT220 type terminal sessions.
One conventional method for providing terminal sessions is to execute a terminal emulator application on the client systems that connects directly to a host legacy system using a TCP/IP socket connection. Another conventional method is to provide connection through a web browser application by translating standard legacy data flows into HTML pages. However, such conventional web browser methods suffer from an inability to handle real-time host updates to user screens as well as other significant problems. For example, forms-based HTML/TN3270 packages are unable to overcome a range of problems associated with common HTML implementations such as real-time host updates to user screens or finding a user's browser platform address on the network.